Resisting Reform in Wakefield

An anti-racist committee to campaign against the new Reform leadership of the local council has now been established as a subcommittee of Wakefield Trades Council, and based on affiliated trade unions.

The committee remains embryonic, but its creation is a significant step forward. Workers’ Liberty activists have played a central role in pushing for its establishment.

The committee remit is:

• organising demonstrations and public campaigning

• street stalls and other visible activity

• door-knocking on estates and engaging directly with working-class communities

• building links with community organisations

• working with local political organisations, including Labour and the Greens

• developing a sustained campaign rather than relying solely on occasional demonstrations.

The central political argument must be that Reform cannot be defeated simply by denouncing Reform. We need to build a positive alternative based on working-class organisation and politics. That means connecting opposition to racism, anti-migrant politics and attacks on LGBT+ people with reversal of austerity, cuts and the further deterioration of public services.

The campaign must seek to reach people who voted Reform rather than treating them as politically beyond engagement. The local election result of May 2026 demonstrates that significant numbers of working-class people are prepared to vote for Reform. Simply telling them that they are wrong, racist, or reactionary will not win them back.

A further positive development is the decision by the regional Labour Party to establish a Local Government Committee to select candidates and organise the campaign for May 2027, when, thanks to a change in procedure, 21 out of 63 seats will come up for election following the all-out election in May 2026. The region had been refusing to do this until August. We have secured a majority for the trade unions on this committee. This provides an important opportunity to influence both candidate selection and the political programme Labour puts forward.

The aim should not simply be to return Labour councillors to the council. Labour needs to present a credible political alternative to Reform based on working-class politics.

Trade union representatives should argue for candidates and policies that:

• oppose cuts to council services and jobs

• defend migrant rights

• oppose anti-trans and anti-LGBT+ politics

• actively oppose racism

• defend public services

• challenge the politics of austerity

• build links between Labour councillors, trade unions and local communities.

There is a danger that Labour’s response to Reform becomes purely electoral: telling people to vote Labour without addressing why such a dramatic collapse in Labour support occurred in May 2026. The trade unions have an important role in pushing Labour towards a more class-conscious and anti-cuts position.

The May 2026 election was a historic defeat for Labour and a major advance for the populist right in Wakefield. The initial response from the labour movement was too slow and too fragmented.

However, we now have two important organisational footholds for climbing back.

The objective cannot simply be to organise some one-off demonstration against Reform. We need to build a sustained campaign that connects anti-racism with the defence of public services, council workers and working-class communities.

Before May 2026, Labour held 48 of the council’s 63 seats. Wakefield Council had been under Labour control continuously since its creation in 1974. Then Reform won 58 seats, with Labour reduced to just one councillor. The election has generated considerable fear and anger among minority communities, particularly LGBT+ people and sections of Wakefield’s Asian communities. Since taking control, Reform has made a number of interventions, so far mainly symbolic, designed to signal a break with previous council policy. These have included abandoning the council’s climate emergency policy, removing Pride flags from council venues, and refusing to formally acknowledge or celebrate Eid.

So far, the practical impact on council workers and services has been relatively limited. There have been some attacks on working from home and on the council’s climate-change service, but there has not yet been a wholesale assault on jobs, pay or services.

The major confrontation is likely to develop around the 2027-8 council budget, particularly towards the end of 2026 and into 2027. The combination of Reform’s political agenda and the financial pressures facing local government creates the potential for significant attacks on council workers and services.

The task is therefore to prepare the labour movement before those attacks arrive, rather than attempting to mobilise after decisions have already been made.

The immediate response from the labour movement was characterised by shock, anger and a recognition that something needed to be done. The day after the election, the With Banners Held High trade union festival took place, providing an early opportunity for discussion about the implications of the Reform victory.

Wakefield Trades Council subsequently held an emergency meeting. That meeting failed to agree a coherent strategy, and the discussion became dominated by disagreement over whether to immediately call a demonstration. The SWP argued for an immediate demonstration but did not engage constructively with proposals for establishing an ongoing anti-racist committee capable of coordinating wider activity.

A demonstration was not a bad idea, but on its own it does not constitute a strategy for defeating Reform. The scale of the challenge requires sustained organising: workplace activity, community campaigning, political education, anti-racist campaigning and the rebuilding of confidence among working-class people.